Lenin declared his complete opposition to a sput or une rarty. A struggle of shades in the Party is inevitable and essential, as long as it does not lead to anarchy and splits, as long as it is confined within bounds approved by the common consent of all comrades and Party members. And our struggle against the right wing of the Party at the Congress, against Akimov and Axelrod, Martynov and Martov, in no way exceeded those bounds. "(2)
Thas Lenin carried on his campaign for a new Party congress, including Bolsheviks and Mensheriks, under a clear banner: We must try to find the framework within which the ideological struggle can proceed more or less normally; a new congress is needed ...... To think that a congress could only lead to a split would mean to admit that we haven't got a party at all, that Party feeling is so poorly developed among all of us that it cannot overcome the old circie spitt... course it is impossible to guarantee anything, but an auempt to sette the connict in a Party manner, and to find a way out, must be made. The Majority, at any rate, does not want a split: (3)
Clear distinction The WSL's confusion of party and faction appears azaln in une same socialsteress зтис e when it states: "Although the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democracy ended in a split, and its forces halved, it was the faction fight waged by Lenin which defended the political and organisational independence of the party against the Mensheviks.
Everything here is confused from top to bottom. It is correctly stated that Lenin waged a faction fight. But a faction is not a party; a faction is a romanon wunw a party. As Lenin delnca It *A faction is an organisation within a party, united, not by its place of work, language or other objective conditions but by a particular view on party questons. (4)
Indeed, the very terms Bolshevik faction and Menshevik faction meant that they were members of the same party. It is then ridiculous to say that the Party "lost half its forces'. What occurred is that the taction tight within the Party revealed that the Menshevik opportunists enjoyed the support of half the Party and the Bolshevik faction half, and an intense factional struggle developed. By its formula, the article in Socialist Press completely removes the dialectically linked aspects of Lenin's struggle at tnat ume - against all those who were for political and ideological conciliation and for a faction struggle; while simultaneously against those who were splitting the Party and for the unity of the Party. Lenin is transformed from a fighter for principled organisational and political posuons mro a crude spit mercnant.
This point becomes even more obvious when we look at the first real split into two parties, as oppos ed to two tactions - in January 1912, at the sixth Congress of the RSLP. Not merely was this nine years after the date given in Socialist Press, but it is important to note that even then Lenin did not call for a political split with the Mensheviks and a division of the Party along Bolshevik/Menshevik lines, a revolutionary party in Russia. tionary party.
but instead for a split on organisational grounds. In line with this all factions were invited to the Congress. As Lenin pointed out:
*The Russian Organising Commission which called the present conference ..... notified all Social Democrats of its convocation and invited to the Conference all, Without a single exception, organisations of our Party: furthermore, all organisations were giv an opportunity to take part in our Conference. (5)
Furthermore, the actual split into two different parties through the expulsion of various elements did not take place because of the Mensheviks' political views but because of a rejection and violation of ine orgamsanonar principies or une rarty: the carrying out of acts incompatible with Party membership by these particular elements. The resolution of the Conference stated clearly: The growing number of groups on the far left today has the effect of puzzling many militants, particularly when a number of these groups declare their support for the Transitional Programme of Leon Trotsky and their intention to 'reconstruct' the Fourth International on a world-wide basis. The road to unifying these groups under the banner of the Fourth International is beset with many obstacles, one of which is confusion over what constitutes the basis of splits and fusions. Many of these currents justify their separation from the Fourth International by invoking Lenin's name and what they assume to be his methods. However, the conception sometimes held of Lenin as an inveterate 'splitter' cannot be upheld in any serious study of. Lenin's fight to establish In many cases this wrong conception stems from the distortions peddled by the Workers Revolutionary Party led by Gerry Healy, whose main 'contribution' has been to confuse all the distinctions drawn by Lenin and Trotsky between parties, factions, tendencies, etc. Healy has established a tradition of splitting on the basis of internal organisational sectarianism and tactical questions. The group of comrades who were bureaucratically expelled from the WRP and have now formed themselves into the Workers Socialist League have yet to subject these incorrect ideas to a thorough critique. In this and subsequent articles we show what Lenin and Trotsky's position really was and explain its more general application to the problem of building a revolutional, grounds.
*The former members of the Central Committee, Mikhail, Yuri and Roman, refused not only to join the Central Committee in the spring of 1910, but even to attend a single meeting to co-opt new members, and bluntly declared that they considered tne very existence of the Party Central Committee to be "harmful". It was precisely after the Plenary Meeting of 1910 that the above mentioned chief publications of the liquidators, Nasha Zarya and Dyelo Zhizni, definitely turned to liquidationism all (1) Lenin along the line, not only "belittling (contrary to the (2) decision of the Plenary Meeting) the importance of the illegal party", but openly renouncing it, declar- (4) ing that the Party was "extinct", that the Party was already liquidated, that the idea of reviving the illegal Party was "a reactionary utopia", using the (7) columns of legally published magazines to heap slan- (8) at that time. Lenin gives a totally different answer 'Our champions of "agreement" fail to understand a very important and very simple thing: the liquidators are not only opportunists (like Bernstein and Co.); they are also trying to build a seperate party of their own, they have issued the slogan that the RDLP does not exist they pay no heed whatsoever to the decisions of the RSDLP. That is the difference between us and "Europe"....In Europe. an opportunist guilty of one tenth of what the Petresovs, Igorevs, Besrs, Martovs, Dans and their like have done and are doing against their Party and in defiance of its decisions would not be tolerated in the ranks of the Party a single month. (7)
Furthermore, during the earlier period when the Mensheviks were in fact participating in a correct organisamonal lasmon mue party, ana паа a properly constituted majority, Lenin was so far from advocating a split that he demanded that the Bol shevik faction accept Party discipline even on such crucial questions as voting for bourgeois candidates. For example: After the competent bodies have decided, all of us, as members of the Party, must mo me ballot Dora Dalot paper bearing a Cadet's name even if it sickens him.
It was only when the Mensheviks violated the discipline of the Party through anarchistic boycotts ol its organisations, attempting to overturn Congres. decisions through votes of the Central Committee, rejection of the authority of leading bodies, etc, that Lenin refused to accept this.
Confusion All this of course does not mean that Lenin - a Tony Cliff, for example, would have us believe -was some sort of organisational eclectic. On the contrary, as we shall see, in 1914 Lenin carried out an absolutely ruthless, final and definitive split into two parties along strictly political, and not organisa • but what tre expenience pror to 1914 shows is that Lenin. and later Trotsky, was absolutely clear in his distinction between a party Unfortunately, through their quite wrong fac tual account of the history of the Bolshevik Party, the WSL shows that it has as yet made no serious stuay on these issues. It cannot explain why Lenin for med a faction in 1903, expelled Mensheviks in 1912 on organisational and not political grounds, and only came out tor a pouncar sput in te rarty in 1914 Similarly, to jump ahead, it cannot say why Trot sky formed a faction in 1923, only advocated a new party in 1933, and was for example opposed to a split with Burnham and Shachtman in the Socialist Workers Party in 1940. On these questions the com rades of the WS have not as yet consciously fought through their break with Healyism and tend to take as good coin what they received from the WRP.
Collected Works (CW) Vol 7, p351. CW Vol 7, p347 VOl 34, P246 CW VO 17, 0265 Vol 17, p453 Vol 17, 0481 VORS OSTS
Red Weekly 26 February 1976 revolution: Immediate majority rule! Establishment of a workers bourgeoisie. and peasants government made up in the hearts of the international But any attempt at austerity Southern Africa 9 The General Strike